The Horns of Bilgewater
by ThePriestSpy
Summary: Part 1: The war on the sea wasn't won. It just hadn't quite started yet. Part 2: Thoughts and voices below the waves.
1. Above the waves

Hello again. To those few nice people who read my story, I apologize for making you wait so long for more.  
To make up, we have a two-parter today. Leave me some honest criticism, and enjoy these small stories!

* * *

"The Horns of Bilgewater are, without a doubt, one of the more bizarre contraptions to be found in Runeterra. Around multiple pillars of rock, giant metal tubes were wound in the fashion of the great sea serpents, beginning at the top with an artful mouthpiece, and broadening as they went down until they ended in a giant ornate maw that was partially submerged in the waters. With the right techniques used, blowing into these horns would cause massive tremors, disorienting the waves all around the Serpent Isles. Tradition holds that these tremors keep the greatest of the sea-beasts from finding and devouring the mainland.

The appropriate techniques are practiced by the so-called Serpent Callers, men and woman from all around Bilgewater, who keep these traditions alive, rowing out every day to their respective horns, ascending the many steps carved into the winding tubes that made up the horns to carry out their task. It was a tedious, lifelong task, and many a visitor, sometimes even other Bilgewater natives, would raise an eyebrow at this most peculiar routine.  
The Serpent Callers are a tightknit community, and keeper of many secrets in Bilgewater."

\- Compendium of Runeterran Naval Culture, Part 3.

* * *

Wright Serpens was one of these Serpent Callers. Though he was still fairly young in comparison to some of his colleagues, he was proud to call himself a seasoned veteran in the art of the Horns. He had, of course, been asked many times why he would devote his entire life to such a task, but Wright saw it as his duty to uphold the task his father had passed onto him.

His family had been in the craft of the Serpent Callers for many generations, and like his father and his father before him, he had been taught the secrets of the sea since he could remember. His name itself was a testimony to this heritage. So, like every day, he sat in his rowboat, and rowed the short distance towards the giant instrument he had inherited.

Climbing up the many stairs of the horn (he had never bothered to count them all), he stood upon the platform at the top in the morning sun, looking out upon the sea. Far out on the water, Wright witnessed one of Bilgewater's many hunting vessels, a wooden giant with four masts and large bleached sails drag in yet another one of the great monsters of the depths. The creatures scales glittered in the light of the sun, and large rivers of blood colored the water behind the ship red, leaving a murky trail behind.

This was the life of the city; these ships would come and fill the butcheries of Bilgewater with the so-called monsters that populated the ocean. The flesh and organs of the many different creatures were always sought after for one purpose or another, and sold for horrendously high prices to whoever could provide the coin. The hunt for the sea creatures had become a thriving economy, and even a sport for those insane and rich enough to perform it.

In the beginning however, as Wright had been taught by the other Serpent Callers, Bilgewater had hunted the leviathans of the deep simply to protect itself from attacks by said sea monsters. The first Serpent Callers had built the Horns in response, to disguise the islands location from the most vicious of the oceans creatures by using the waves to disorient them.

As with anything that produces money however, the hunting hadn't stopped once the city was safe. Now protected by the Horns, Bilgewater's captains quickly realized the profit that could be made, and so they established the famous bloody trade, dragging in more and more carcasses, staining the harbors forever red. When once the ships had been hunted by the beasts of the sea, now they were hunting those same beasts in return.  
Blinded by success, Bilgewater celebrated its victory over the beasts from the depths.

How foolish, Wright would think to himself as he began performing. The city had become complacent and arrogant, lulled into a false sense of security. Only the Serpent Callers dared to remember that which most were blissfully ignorant of, the terrible secret that was hidden by the waves. These monsters, fishes, sharks, kraken alike, who were hunted like any other common game, were far from mindless or powerless. Deep below the surface, the Callers knew there were powers they couldn't fathom, a cold, ancient intelligence, and a great and terrible anger. It may be repelled by the horns, but the deep knows of the city and its deeds all too well. Of course, the Callers tried to warn Bilgewater of its fate, but in a city ruled by naught but violence and coin, where profit reigned supreme, who would listen to the tales of a few reclusive, crazy people that tried to stop the neverending flow of money?

It was thus that Wright and his colleagues were barely surprised when news reached them from the city proper, of a nameless phantom that came from the sea and now haunts the Bloodharbor, slaughtering left and right those who were involved in the bloody conquest on the sea. They should have all seen it coming. In the depths, hatred had grown for a long, long time, and now, it seemed, the ocean was hunting down the monsters above the surface. The war against the sea hadn't been won. It had only just begun.

And with each day that passed, as he felt the eyes of the sea linger on him, Wright wasn't so sure if Bilgewater would come out on top this time.


	2. Below the waves

Chapter 2

Sinking. Sinking to the ground. _But there ain't no ground here._

Being dead was a strange experience to be had. Numbness and cold pierce everything, flesh, skin, bones, mind and soul. It was an icy-cold vice, clutching you and leaving you in darkness. Yet, down here, in the cold waters, prowling forhis victims, he had never felt so alive.  
It was almost ironic in a way. When he was alive, he had sought that intense thrill of hunting and killing monsters.  
Now, in undeath, it was barely any different, he just hunted a different type of monster.

It wasn't always like this. In the beginning it was about money. Scraping together a few meager bronze coins while the crews of the large vessels were paid in gold krakens had become tiring, and so he fought his way into the well-paid harpooning business. It then that he discovered just how thrilling the hunt for monsters could be. Risking your life by throwing yourself at the leviathans of the deep was an experience like no other.

His new bosses knew this of course. They couldn't offer him money for his service, but they had something far better.  
Every kill, every wicked person crossed off the list gave him that strange rush of power and that feeling of satisfaction he had been seeking in life.  
It seemed deep-folk had quite the way with persuasion, after all.

Someday perhaps he'd finally grow weary of this, and heed the call of the Masks. He was well aware that he was dead, and nothing but that. Sometimes he felt it, that tug of oblivion at whatever kept his soul inside his body. Maybe he'd give in one day. But not any time soon.  
His list was still unfinished after all, and a good man never leaves his work incomplete.

Of course, at the back of his mind, he knew by now it was not his list he was working on anymore. Something else now held the reigns in his life, put names and faces for him to cross out, but honestly, he didn't mind. Those he sank beneath the waves now were scum just like the crew of the _Terror_ , sometimes far worse. They were all corrupt and evil, and anyone who worked with his former crew in any way deserved their end in the cold dark.  
The city was filled to the brim with filth, and the voices keep screaming for more blood.

Did that make him a monster too, slaughtering like this? Perhaps. He was no good man, had his fair share of misdeeds in life. But, he vowed,  
then he would be their very own monster, the one that would make the city finally pay its debts.

The killing had become routine to him anyway. Emerge from the waters. Bring Death from Below. Sacrifice the body to the deep. Return to the waters. And each time, the list would only grow longer with the demands of his masters, voices screaming for justice upon the scum of Bilgewater.  
Who was he to deny their callings?

" **They murdered my brothers!"**

" **They mauled my body!"**

" **They killed my young!"**

So many screams of hatred and bloodlust echoed in his head, all directed at those monsters above the waves, and he'd gladly join the chorus. Bilgewater was fattening itself upon the beasts of the deep, the same way as it was fattening itself on the backs of people like him, and they'd make the city pay.

His masters were, unfortunately, unable to fully enact their own revenge. Those blasted Horns on the shores drove them away time and time again, and so they had to be satisfied with attacking the hunting ships that came for them every day. He was different though. He could leave the waters and step on solid ground. He swore he would kill the monsters in their nest and teach then to never again turn their back on the sea.

That kept the voices happy.


End file.
